I built my first SaaS. Then the client bought it.

That product was Estate Portal.

The original arrangement was fairly simple. I would build and operate the platform, the client would have exclusive access for two years, and I would still be able to onboard other customers.

I was excited about it from the start because it was a chance to build something much bigger than the websites and smaller tools I had worked on previously.

Building Estate Portal

The project took me into quite a few areas I hadn’t had to think about before.

There was obviously the product itself, but also the architecture behind it: users and permissions, databases, document storage, automated processes, backups, security, deployment and all the other things that become important when people are actually relying on your software.

I also had to think much more carefully about the user experience.

How should a letting agent actually use this?

Which processes could be automated?

What information needs to be connected?

What should happen in the background without the user having to think about it?

It was my first real experience of putting all of those pieces together into one product.

And I learned a lot.

Not just about the technology, but about building software for a real business with real requirements and real users.

Then the plan changed

The original plan was for the client to have exclusive access for two years.

Instead, they liked the platform so much that they decided to buy it.

The acquisition completed in September 2026.

The platform is now being integrated into their existing systems, with the functionality becoming part of their wider estate agency operation. Existing customers have also been transitioned across as part of the process.

That was definitely not how I expected the project to end.

I started out thinking I was building a SaaS product that I’d operate for a couple of years.

I ended up selling the entire platform.

The handover

The acquisition also gave me my first experience of something else I’d never really had to deal with before: handing over a live software product.

It isn’t just a case of handing someone the source code.

There is infrastructure, databases, documentation, deployment processes, user data, integrations, accounts and plenty of context that needs to be transferred as well.

I had to make sure the new owners could understand how everything worked and take it forward themselves.

That was probably one of the most useful parts of the experience.

It made me realise how important it is to build things in a way that someone else can eventually understand and maintain.

What I learned

The biggest thing I took away from Estate Portal is simply how much there is to learn when you take an idea all the way through to a real product.

I got to experience the full journey:

Idea → architecture → build → launch → real users → commercial agreement → acquisition → handover.

I’ve built plenty of things for myself, but this was different.

Someone else was relying on what I built, and ultimately someone else decided it was valuable enough to buy.

That’s a pretty great outcome for my first commissioned SaaS project.

I’m genuinely very grateful I got the opportunity to do it.

I learned a huge amount, had a lot of fun building it, and I’m excited to see what I build next.